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Feel the beat

By Duncan Graham-Rowe

LASTING relief may be at hand for the world’s one billion tinnitus sufferers.
To cancel out the maddening ringing, a company in New Jersey has invented a
device that makes a bone behind the ear vibrate.

The Aurex-3, developed by ADM Tronics in New Jersey, works by pressing a
small vibrating probe onto the mastoid bone behind the ear. The
cochlea—the coiled part of the inner ear that turns mechanical vibrations
into neural impulses— is housed within this bone, and the vibrations are
effectively applied directly to it.

Initially, the user tunes the frequency of the probe by adjusting a slider on
a portable control box until the sound stops. This confirms that they have
matched the frequency of the ringing with that of the probe. Once the
frequencies match, the Aurex-3 takes over and works out a complex harmonic tone
based around this frequency. “It’s called beat harmonics,” explains André
Di Mino, whose father developed the Aurex-3 to cure his own tinnitus. “When the
frequency hits a specific harmonic, which is the opposite sine wave of the tone
that the person is hearing, it cancels out the sounds.”

This technique, called masking, is already used in other devices that give
tinnitus sufferers short-term relief. Di Mino believes the Aurex-3 takes masking
further by offering long-term benefits without interfering with hearing. He
claims the harmonic helps mop up all the residual noises, not just the main
ringing or roar.

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Other masking devices fit into the ear canal and often use white noise to
blank out sounds. Because they fit inside the ear they can impair ordinary
hearing.

ADM Tronics is hoping to get permission from the US Food and Drugs
Administration to market the device as a short-term solution. Eventually it
hopes to do clinical trials into the lasting effects of the Aurex-3. “With my
father I can say there have been long-term effects, but we can’t make that claim
until after these trials.”

Catherene McKinney, an audiological scientist studying tinnitus at the Royal
National Institute for Deaf People in Britain, is sceptical. “A lot of these
devices fall down at the clinical trial level,” she says.

McKinney says treating the physical symptoms of tinnitus is only part of the
solution. The sufferer’s own psychological reactions often exaggerate the
severity of the condition, making them unable to ignore it. “To change this you
have to change people’s reactions.”

“Something like the vibrotactile device might help,” she says. “But whether
it has a placebo-type effect or whether it is having some actual useful effect
is difficult to know.”

The inventor of the Aurex-3, Alfonso Di Mino, claims to have clearly
benefited from his device. He says that before he used it, the noise from his
tinnitus was so deafening that it was like sleeping next to a roaring 747 jet.